By Rusty Fleming Be alert out there...the water is low As I said at the August 21st General Membership meeting of the South Grand Chamber, when the organization announced plans to lead the fight to finally correct this absurd practice, “We have met the enemy and it is us.” Obviously not an original slogan, but really, each August we, as a collective Grand Lake whole, remind me of that football team running on to the field for the season’s first game with Pistols Firing and shouting B.S. Sorry Sooner fans, but Boomer Sooner has never crossed my lips audibly and never will. Consider it the Anti-Doug Smith factor…but I digress. Each year we run around, just like that team, telling each other how tough we are and how we’re not puttin’ up with this for yet another year….BUT WE DO. As they say about the definition of insanity……doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result….We could be the Poster-Kid for that group on a number of fronts…and as soon as the water rises, just a silly 12 inches come mid-October, we kind of remind me of that team staring 0-5 in the face come mid-season; the effort just isn’t the same as it was when we were ready to kick some ass over the Labor Day weekend. Those teams which have galloped off to a 5-0 start, or whatever, have maintained their focus and intensity, not been fooled by a phony scouting report and have certainly not mistaken someone wearing a jersey from the opposing team as having contributed to our team’s success. If my fellow Grand Lakers are interpreting these analogies as some form of a pep rally…well congratulations… because we have to keep our eye on the bouncing ball if we’re really going to bring about change. Now for that update. SGL Chamber Initiative Status The chamber has established the meeting date for the official Lake Level pep rally to be October 31st, which is a Friday, and in all likelihood will be hosted at CYC at noon in their ball room, which can handle over 200 attendees. All of our federal elected officials, along with our state representatives and the governor, will be receiving special invitations. As we have mentioned previously, organizations which have joined up so far include the Grand Lake Association, the Monkey Island Business Association, Grand Lakers United Enterprise and the Boaters Association. More organizations are being recruited with support anticipated from the Grove and Jay chambers and several Grand Lake Property Owners Associations and the dominant real estate organization will be contacted in the next few days. If there are those organizations out there, small or large, that wish to be included, just e-mail a request to the chamber at grandlakechamber@gmail. We hope to keep it rolling this time around and if any Grand Laker can attend please the lake level pep rally, e-mail how many will be in your party to the chamber e-mail address above or to grandlakenewsonline@gmail. Did the GRDA Let the Cat out of the Bag? For one of few times, at least that I’m aware of, the lake level issue was discussed at a meeting of the Grand River Dam Authority Board of Directors held last Monday. The only other time I can recall was when Grand Lakers United Enterprise attended a meeting in 2011 and presented the board a petition signed by nearly 4,000 Grand Lake stakeholders seeking some relief from the ridiculous practice of lowering the lake prior to the Labor Day holiday. Monday,the issue was brought up by COO Dan Sullivan and he outlined plans to file for an amended lake rule curve, again, prior to the end of the year. The authority has filed numerous requests with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission in recent years for some relief from an, at best, outdated and ill-timed practice, but has been turned down each time by what the feds have called a lack of supporting scientific data. In the most recent rejection, the feds asked for a study, to be conducted by another federal bureaucracy, the Corps of Engineers, to study and determine what kind of flooding impact the requested rule curve modification might create. The COE had neither the manpower, the funds nor the inclination to perform such a study….Grand Lake’s version of gridlock. Sullivan revealed that through a working relationship established with the state’s two land grant universities, that a flowage study would be made available…possibly as early as October. The study is being conducted as part of a thesis by a student at the University of Oklahoma. Unlike the protocol used in studies provided during the litigation between the GRDA and upstream interests, this new study has utilized the Corps model and their data. Sullivan suggested the corps would review the study and he was hopeful for a COE endorsement. It was also suggested this may well provide the scientific input the FERC has been asking for…So is this the proverbial pot of gold at the end of the rainbow? If I may return to the football analogy for a moment; as the popular Lee Corso from ESPN College Game-day Show has been known to say, “Not so fast, my friend!” We’ve heard promises before regarding this issue and is there really anyone out there who really knows what the FERC ruling might be? I’d suggest the CIA knows more about the inter-workings of ISIS than we do about this unregulated federal agency. We do know this; with every filing with the FERC there is always a public comment period and the lake interests have always been outworked by the upstream interests who have always orchestrate an organized opposition to any raising of the lake. Never mind how ludicrous flooding in August might sound to the logical mind, it has been their cornerstone of the campaign to stop any kind of relief for Grand Lake. The question, which inquiring minds want to know the answer to is this; why was a future rule curve amendment, based on a study which has been ongoing for months and may not be filed until 2015, revealed at the September meeting of the GRDA board? If it was to recruit support for the plan, that’s great, but could it have been to provide some relief to federal elected officials who have been getting an ear full regarding this issue? Let’s hope it was the former, but the strategy of going public with the planed rule curve amendment at this time escapes my senior mind. Did anybody notice there is an election on the horizon? Time will only tell if this was an effective plan or just provide the upstream interest additional time to script their hallucinations about flooding in August. We have to focus, focus, focus and make our game plan as convincing as theirs has been in the past. See Ya’ Around the Pond! More Sharing ServicesShareShare on facebookShare on twitterShare on email
Posted on: Mon, 15 Sep 2014 21:41:58 +0000
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